Octopus Overlords

LordMortis wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2024 2:28 pm Heh, I do monthly prescription refills. In all my time going to my pharmacy I've never seen anyone get vaccines there. Both my visits since the election have seen a line of people with vaccine appointments. I would have thought when the made COVID available, you'd see 'em but nope. It was not until just over a month. The lady getting poked as I was picking up was getting 4!!!! COVID, Flu, TDAP, and I didn't hear the 4th. Also, for the first time in I don't know how long, most of the pharmacy staff are wearing masks. That should tell me something. Like maybe I need to start masking more again.

I wonder how much is news, how much is seasonal illness increasing the desire for prophylactics, and how much is fear of the change of federal Gov't come January.

I need to take me and the kids for Covid/Flu vaccines. Walgreens annoyed me when after waiting nearly an hour (and I had an appointment) that insurance no longer covers Covid vaccines. We left without getting poked, my insurance agent confirmed that this is the case, but they will reimburse me if I pay. I've yet to make an appointment (this time at the supermarket which gives 10% discount coupons), but my daughter keeps asking when they will get vaccinated. Need to do it soon, she is going to the Philippines next month.

Also, when I went for an appointment for my shoulder at the hospital last week, I was told at registration that masks are mandatory again. Later on, the PT told me I could ditch it if I wanted to.

Yale School of Public Health: Study: More Than 335,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved During Pandemic if U.S. Had Universal Health Care

In the United States, death rates from COVID-19 are higher than in any other high-income country—and our fragmented and inefficient health system may be largely to blame, Yale researchers say in a new study.

If the U.S. had had a single-payer universal health care system in 2020, nearly 212,000 American lives would have been saved that year, according to a new study. In addition, the country would have saved $105 billion in COVID-19 hospitalization expenses alone.

The research team further calculated that in a non-pandemic year, some $438 billion would be saved by single-payer universal health care, like Medicare for All.

The results make a powerful case for health care reform, according to lead author Alison Galvani, Ph.D.

“Americans are needlessly losing lives and money,” said Galvani, director of Yale’s Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis and an endowed chair in the Department of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health. “Medicare for All would be both an economic stimulus and life-saving transformation of our health care system.”

Yes, but how many lives were saved by creating value for shareholders?

And now the good sir from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene , is running around claiming vaccines cause autism. What is this dude’s problem? First he goes after his fellow trans community members, now he’s going down the celebrity mom rabbit hole of anti vax? This fucking guy.

hepcat wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2024 8:04 pm First he goes after his fellow trans community members

I'm confused - did I miss something?

Absolutely absurd:

A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events.

Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop.

NPR has confirmed the policy was discussed at this meeting, and at two other meetings held within the department's Office of Public Health, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, through interviews with four employees at the Department of Health, which employs more than 6,500 people and is the state's largest agency.

According to the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation, the policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing.

If this is any indication as to where we're headed (especially in Red states) for 2025 and beyond, JFC already - just put me up against the wall as soon as possible.

But hey, now insurance companies won't have deny request for vaccine claims, right?

Zaxxon wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2024 3:42 pm Yes, but how many lives were saved by creating value for shareholders?

It's being sold to the masses as a battle for freedom. "You don't want the big, bad government to tell you what is and isn't covered, do you?"

Apparently the masses agree and want the billionaire class to tell them what is and isn't covered instead.

The thing they're doing in Louisiana seems to be working out just about exactly as you'd expect.

Flu surges in Louisiana as health department barred from promoting flu shots

Flu season is ramping up across the US, but Louisiana—the state that has reportedly barred its health department from promoting flu shots, as well as COVID-19 and mpox vaccines—is leading the country with an early and strong surge.

Louisiana's flu activity has reached the "Very High" category set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the latest data. The 13-category scale is based on the percentage of doctor's visits that were for influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) in the previous week. Louisiana is at the first of three "Very High" levels. Oregon is the only other state to have reached this level. The rest of the country spans the scale, with 13 jurisdictions at "High," including New York City and Washington, DC. There are 11 at "Moderate," 10 at "Low," and 19 at "Minimal."

COVID does get a mention in the article:

COVID-19 is also ramping up a winter wave. While standard disease burden indicators—hospitalization and deaths—are low, they're trending positive. Wastewater surveillance, meanwhile, is showing a steep incline, with levels of the virus being detected at "moderate" levels.

As this thread slowly fades away, a nice summary of things as they currently stand:

The COVID-19 pandemic, as best as we can tell, took more than 20 million lives, cost $16 trillion, kept 1.6 billion children out of school, and pushed some 130 million people into poverty. And it’s not over: Figures from October 2024 showed at least 1000 people died from COVID-19 each week, 75% of them in the United States, and that’s relying only on data from the 34 countries that still report deaths to the World Health Organization (WHO). Last month, at a 4-day meeting here on preventing future pandemics, WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove ticked off those figures with exasperation. “The world I live in right now, no one wants to talk about COVID-19,” she told the gathering. “Everyone is acting as though this pandemic didn’t really happen.”

Yet 5 years after a coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV-2 first surfaced in Wuhan, China, scientists are still intensively trying to make sense of COVID-19. “We would each have to read over 240 papers every single day to actually keep up with all of the [COVID-19] literature that’s come out” in 2024, Cherilyn Sirois, an editor at Cell, noted.

Despite the flood of insights into the behavior of the virus and how to prevent it from causing harm, many at the meeting worried the world has turned a blind eye to the lessons learned from the pandemic. “I feel this massive gravitational pull to go back to what we were doing before,” Van Kerkhove said. “There’s no way we should be going back.”

The tone:

Even more concerning to some at the conference, many countries have actually become hostile toward pandemic prevention research, much of the anger stemming from an unproven assertion that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab. “There’s been massive public and political backlash against the virology community and public health in general, so we may be worse off now locally than we were prior to the pandemic,” said virologist Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was recently accused by Robert Redfield, former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of being the “scientific mastermind” of a supposed effort to engineer the virus.

Where we're headed:

A Chinese scientist did offer one of the most provocative presentations. Immunologist Yunlong Cao of Peking University, another organizer of the meeting, noted the “extraordinary viral evolutionary speed” of SARS-CoV-2 not only means fresh variants are “continuously causing reinfections,” but that antibody treatments and vaccines can quickly lose effectiveness. None of the first approved monoclonal antibodies and vaccines work against current circulating strains.

Cao noted that only two of 140 antibodies his lab identified in early 2020 as able to neutralize the first variant of SARS-CoV-2 could protect against the virus in circulation 2 years later. “The only solution to this problem,” he said, “is if we can do accurate predictions about viral evolution” to assess which antibodies will retain their powers.

...

As for the future, Van Kerkhove warns that the world is dropping its guard against novel pathogens. Infectious disease is “not a safe space to really be working in,” she told Science. “Labs have been threatened. People have been threatened. Governments don’t necessarily want to be the ones to say, ‘Hey, we found something new.’”

There's quite a bit more, especially on the research and the hope for nasal vaccination. But I don't feel very hopeful reading the article. The final numbers for deaths in the United States probably won't come out for another week or so; as of 11/30/24 we had ~44K deaths attributable to Covid-19. In 2023 we were around 77K deaths and I'd not expecting the 2024 number to be higher than that.

I'm sad to say that's at a level we've collectively found acceptable. The pressure to do anything (I fear) has largely been removed.

People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

Here's hoping the MIB appear and fix stuff in 2025...

2025 is going to be epically bad for public health when the clowns start driving the car. Leaving the WHO is one of the dozens of things they say they'll do on Day One, and that's just for starters. Our incoming HHS director has already given us previews of more. Fauci is probably hoping for a preemptive pardon. Meanwhile, H5N1 laughs and says Hold my beer.

Have you considered changing careers?

Smoove_B wrote:Here's hoping the MIB appear and fix stuff in 2025...

Too late. Y’all stepped out of the shadows.

Kraken wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:01 am Have you considered changing careers?

I'd made a cryptic post back in November about a pending career change, yes. I was offered a job with the state, but unfortunately it wasn't a good move. I'm in a bit of a golden-handcuff situation right now and on top of that our governor quietly announced a hiring freeze and possibly salary freeze for 2025 and beyond. The job offer was like reading a contract from hell with all kinds of stipulations and notifications, essentially making me a temporary employee for a year. I didn't get a good feeling, so I passed. It really sucks because I've wanted to work for the state for almost 30 years now and this was likely my last chance, but conditions are turbulent now and probably going to be worse. I have a couple of other leads with local non-profits that I might pursue in the spring, but for now (like Dido) I'm going to go down with this ship.

Happy Friday!

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:18 am The tone:

Even more concerning to some at the conference, many countries have actually become hostile toward pandemic prevention research, much of the anger stemming from an unproven assertion that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab. “There’s been massive public and political backlash against the virology community and public health in general, so we may be worse off now locally than we were prior to the pandemic,” said virologist Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was recently accused by Robert Redfield, former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of being the “scientific mastermind” of a supposed effort to engineer the virus.

It may be that a full-on uncontrolled pandemic is the only thing that's going to wake people up to 'facts' vs 'alternative facts' and get them ready for the nightmare we've set ourselves up to face over the next century.

We’ve primed ourselves to live out the zombie apocalypse rather than a nuclear one.

Blackhawk wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:13 pm It may be that a full-on uncontrolled pandemic is the only thing that's going to wake people up to 'facts' vs 'alternative facts' and get them ready for the nightmare we've set ourselves up to face over the next century.

Look at you - all hopeful we're going to make it another 100 years.

Me? I'm not so sure another pandemic is going to change anything - even if it is worse than Covid-19 ever was (like H5N1 has the potential to be). I don't get the impression anyone outside of the field is even remotely interested in what's happening domestically with cattle and chickens. I've seen "DO NOT COMPLY" trending on social media for the last few weeks, presumably in response for what I guess some are saying regarding masks - not just for bird flu but how many hospitals nationwide are now requiring masks as we're in peak respiratory illness season.

Instead, it feels like we're going to slowly slide backwards over the next ~25 years with vaccine preventable diseases returning and quality of life depleting. Children now and kids being born won't believe people lived until their 80s in our time and most don't have scars or a chronic physical ailments related to a childhood infection of something. Dental health will plummet. Workplace injuries and deaths will increase. Automotive deaths and injuries will continue to trend up. The list goes on and on and I'm at a loss as to how we pull out of this nosedive, if we even can.

Yes, a giant catastrophic event that lasts a relatively short time and has severe, widespread effects *might* change things. But sadly, I don't see that happening - instead it'll be a slow transition to a state that is worse than what we all experienced; what we all saw was possible.

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2025 2:39 pm I don't get the impression anyone outside of the field is even remotely interested in what's happening domestically with cattle and chickens.

Having just paid $7.39 for eggs, I bet there is some care. But of course, President Leon is going to fix that in a couple of weeks, as that is what he was voted in for.

I'm still only masking in medical environments and it's medical environment time of the year for me. Semi annuals, annuals, blood tests, colonoscopy, dentist, infusion all scheduled.

I'm thinking I might go out tomorrow for the last day of Marvelous Marvin's Mechanical Museum before it transforms to a new location to become???? I may mask for that. This time of year, plus kids, plus holiday mingling traveling, plus high traffic/high density traffic will get my paranoia but I still am trying to get to a point where I start re-integrating in to the populace. 5 years going on 6 is a long time to be away from people.

http://www.marvin3m.com/

LordMortis wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:06 pm
I'm thinking I might go out tomorrow for the last day of Marvelous Marvin's Mechanical Museum before it transforms to a new location to become????

http://www.marvin3m.com/

I've been there a number of times. Have pictures of my tiny little kids on some of the super old little "rides" they had.

Go.

I went. It was even more packed than I thought it would be. It was waaaaay too much for someone in isolation since March of 2020. I wanted to get some pictures but there was no way. Will be interesting to see what Marvin's inheritors do with a new space. I hope they continue and expand the tradition (and don't lose money doing so)

LordMortis wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2025 12:01 am I went. It was even more packed than I thought it would be. It was waaaaay too much for someone in isolation since March of 2020. I wanted to get some pictures but there was no way. Will be interesting to see what Marvin's inheritors do with a new space. I hope they continue and expand the tradition (and don't lose money doing so)

Yeah, that place is/was a serious treasure. I very much hope that it lives on as well.

CDC:

• The percent of the population reporting receipt of the updated 2024─25 COVID-19 vaccine is 10.6% (9.8-11.5) for children and 21.5% (20.8-22.3) for adults age 18+, including 44.2% (42.0-46.3) among adults age 65+.
• The percent of the population reporting receipt of an influenza vaccine is 41.9% (40.3-43.4) for children and 42.7% (41.5-43.9) for adults age 18+, including 68.3% (65.0-71.6) among adults age 65+.
• The percent of adults age 75+ reporting ever receiving an RSV vaccine is 43.6% (42.0-45.3).

Additional data at RespVaxView.

Maybe the world is just bleak, but I have to say that 21.5% for all adults is higher than I would have guessed.

It's a disgrace and given the numbers, I'm expecting Fall 2025 shots to be restricted to 65+ because Medicare will pay for it. It's pretty clear there's limited demand and why should they bother making it if people aren't taking it? I still don't understand why they keep making annual influenza shots. No one cares.

NOTE: All bets are off if (when) RFK Jr. is placed as head of HHS.

I'm proud to be in the minority.